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• Introduction

Conjunctions

Prepositions, interjections, categorizing the parts of speech.

part of speech

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part of speech , lexical category to which a word is assigned based on its function in a sentence.

There are eight parts of speech in traditional English grammar: noun, pronoun, verb , adjective , adverb , conjunction, preposition , and interjection . In linguistics , parts of speech are more typically called word classes .

A noun names a person, place, thing, or idea. There are many subcategories of nouns, including common nouns, proper nouns, collective nouns, and abstract nouns.

Common nouns name basic things that can be seen and touched. Examples of common nouns include dog , banana , table , and book .

• The dog ate a banana .
• The book was on the table .

Proper nouns name specific people, places, and things, and they begin with a capital letter . Examples of proper nouns include George, New York City , Empire State Building , and Atlantic Ocean .

• George sailed the Atlantic Ocean .
• The Empire State Building is in New York City .

Collective nouns name groups of people or things. Examples of collective nouns include team , flock , litter , and batch .

• The team won the game.
• The flock flew south for the winter.

Abstract nouns name things that cannot be seen or touched. Examples of abstract nouns include happiness , truth , friendship , and beauty .

• He brings her so much happiness .
• The friendship is a strong one.

A pronoun is used in place of a noun. There are many subcategories of pronouns, including but not limited to personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, and reflexive pronouns.

Personal pronouns replace names of people, places, things, and ideas. Examples of personal pronouns include she , he , it , and they .

• They enjoyed the party.
• Mikey likes it .

Possessive pronouns replace nouns and indicate ownership. Because they modify nouns, they are also frequently categorized as adjectives. Examples of possessive pronouns include his , its , mine , and theirs .

• The house is theirs .
• The parrot knows its name.

Reflexive pronouns replace nouns when the subject and object in a sentence are the same. Examples of reflexive pronouns include myself , herself , themselves , and oneself .

• She baked a cake all by herself .
• They prepared themselves for the adventure.

A verb indicates a state of doing, being, or having. There are three main subcategories of verbs: doing verbs, being verbs, and having verbs.

Doing verbs indicate actions. Examples of doing verbs include run , wash , explain , and wonder .

• Oliver washed the windows.
• I wonder where the cat is hiding.

Being and having verbs do not indicate action and are considered relating (or linking) verbs because they connect one piece of information to another. Examples of being and having verbs include am , are , has , and own .

• We are at the store.
• John has a red baseball cap.

An adjective describes or modifies a noun or pronoun.

Adjectives provide information about the qualities or classifications of a person or thing. Examples of adjectives include tall , purple , funny , and antique .

• The Willis Tower is a tall building.
• There were several antique cars in the parade.

An adverb describes or modifies verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.

Adverbs provide information about the manner in which things are done, as well as when, where, and why they are done. Examples of adverbs include quickly , extremely , fiercely , and yesterday .

• The boy ran quickly through the rainstorm.
• That was a fiercely competitive game yesterday.

A conjunction links words, phrases, and clauses. There are two main subcategories of conjunctions: coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions.

Coordinating conjunctions link words, phrases, and clauses that are equally important in a sentence. Examples of coordinating conjunctions include and , but , or , and so .

• The students read short stories and novels.
• Liz went to the movies but not to dinner.

Subordinating conjunctions link subordinate clauses to a sentence. Examples of subordinating conjunctions include because , although , before , and since .

• The team is cheering because it is excited.
• Henry had Swiss cheese on his burger although he preferred cheddar.

A preposition provides information about the relative position of a noun or pronoun. Prepositions can indicate direction, time, place, location, and spatial relationships of objects. Examples of prepositions include on , in , across , and after .

• The cat ran across the road.
• The pencil is in the drawer.

An interjection acts as an exclamation. Interjections typically express emotional reactions to information in an adjoining sentence. Examples of interjections include eek , wow , oops , and phew .

• Eek ! That was a huge spider.
• Oops ! I didn’t mean to slam the door.

Although the number of parts of speech is traditionally fixed at eight, some grammarians consider there to be additional parts of speech. For example, determiners (also called determinatives) modify nouns and are therefore generally considered to be adjectives, but they differ from other adjectives in that their exact meaning is supplied by context . They include articles, demonstrative pronouns, possessive pronouns, and quantifiers. Examples of determiners include the , an , that , your , and many .

Over the years grammarians have also proposed changes in how parts of speech are categorized. The 2002 edition of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language , for example, placed pronouns as a subcategory of nouns.

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Freedom of Speech

By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 27, 2023 | Original: December 4, 2017

Freedom of speech—the right to express opinions without government restraint—is a democratic ideal that dates back to ancient Greece. In the United States, the First Amendment guarantees free speech, though the United States, like all modern democracies, places limits on this freedom. In a series of landmark cases, the U.S. Supreme Court over the years has helped to define what types of speech are—and aren’t—protected under U.S. law.

The ancient Greeks pioneered free speech as a democratic principle. The ancient Greek word “parrhesia” means “free speech,” or “to speak candidly.” The term first appeared in Greek literature around the end of the fifth century B.C.

During the classical period, parrhesia became a fundamental part of the democracy of Athens. Leaders, philosophers, playwrights and everyday Athenians were free to openly discuss politics and religion and to criticize the government in some settings.

First Amendment

In the United States, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech.

The First Amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution . The Bill of Rights provides constitutional protection for certain individual liberties, including freedoms of speech, assembly and worship.

The First Amendment doesn’t specify what exactly is meant by freedom of speech. Defining what types of speech should and shouldn’t be protected by law has fallen largely to the courts.

In general, the First Amendment guarantees the right to express ideas and information. On a basic level, it means that people can express an opinion (even an unpopular or unsavory one) without fear of government censorship.

It protects all forms of communication, from speeches to art and other media.

Flag Burning

While freedom of speech pertains mostly to the spoken or written word, it also protects some forms of symbolic speech. Symbolic speech is an action that expresses an idea.

Flag burning is an example of symbolic speech that is protected under the First Amendment. Gregory Lee Johnson, a youth communist, burned a flag during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas to protest the Reagan administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court , in 1990, reversed a Texas court’s conviction that Johnson broke the law by desecrating the flag. Texas v. Johnson invalidated statutes in Texas and 47 other states prohibiting flag burning.

When Isn’t Speech Protected?

Not all speech is protected under the First Amendment.

Forms of speech that aren’t protected include:

• Obscene material such as child pornography
• Plagiarism of copyrighted material
• Defamation (libel and slander)
• True threats

Speech inciting illegal actions or soliciting others to commit crimes aren’t protected under the First Amendment, either.

The Supreme Court decided a series of cases in 1919 that helped to define the limitations of free speech. Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917, shortly after the United States entered into World War I . The law prohibited interference in military operations or recruitment.

Socialist Party activist Charles Schenck was arrested under the Espionage Act after he distributed fliers urging young men to dodge the draft. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction by creating the “clear and present danger” standard, explaining when the government is allowed to limit free speech. In this case, they viewed draft resistant as dangerous to national security.

American labor leader and Socialist Party activist Eugene Debs also was arrested under the Espionage Act after giving a speech in 1918 encouraging others not to join the military. Debs argued that he was exercising his right to free speech and that the Espionage Act of 1917 was unconstitutional. In Debs v. United States the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Espionage Act.

Freedom of Expression

The Supreme Court has interpreted artistic freedom broadly as a form of free speech.

In most cases, freedom of expression may be restricted only if it will cause direct and imminent harm. Shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater and causing a stampede would be an example of direct and imminent harm.

In deciding cases involving artistic freedom of expression the Supreme Court leans on a principle called “content neutrality.” Content neutrality means the government can’t censor or restrict expression just because some segment of the population finds the content offensive.

Free Speech in Schools

In 1965, students at a public high school in Des Moines, Iowa , organized a silent protest against the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to protest the fighting. The students were suspended from school. The principal argued that the armbands were a distraction and could possibly lead to danger for the students.

The Supreme Court didn’t bite—they ruled in favor of the students’ right to wear the armbands as a form of free speech in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District . The case set the standard for free speech in schools. However, First Amendment rights typically don’t apply in private schools.

What does free speech mean?; United States Courts . Tinker v. Des Moines; United States Courts . Freedom of expression in the arts and entertainment; ACLU .

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Definition of speech noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

• speaker noun
• speech noun
• spoken adjective (≠ unspoken)
• Several people made speeches at the wedding.
• She gave a rousing speech to the crowd.
• speech on something to deliver a speech on human rights
• speech about something He inspired everyone with a moving speech about tolerance and respect.
• in a speech In his acceptance speech , the actor thanked his family.
• a lecture on the Roman army
• a course/​series of lectures
• a televised presidential address
• She gave an interesting talk on her visit to China.
• to preach a sermon
• a long/​short speech/​lecture/​address/​talk/​sermon
• a keynote speech/​lecture/​address
• to write/​prepare/​give/​deliver/​hear a(n) speech/​lecture/​address/​talk/​sermon
• to attend/​go to a lecture/​talk
• George Washington's inaugural speech
• He made a speech about workers of the world uniting.
• In a speech given last month, she hinted she would run for office.
• She delivered the keynote speech (= main general speech) at the conference.
• He wrote her party conference speech.
• His 20-minute speech was interrupted several times by booing.
• Her comments came ahead of a speech she will deliver on Thursday to business leaders.
• She concluded her speech by thanking the audience.
• He gave an impassioned speech broadcast nationwide.
• We heard a speech by the author.
• This is very unexpected—I haven't prepared a speech.
• The guest speaker is ill so I have to do the opening speech.
• He read his speech from a prompter.
• the farewell speech given by George Washington
• He made the comments in a nationally televised speech.
• During his victory speech the President paid tribute to his defeated opponent.
• In his concession speech, he urged his supporters to try to work with Republicans.
• The Prime Minister addressed the nation in a televised speech.
• He delivered his final speech to Congress.
• He delivered the commencement speech at Notre Dame University.
• His speech was broadcast on national radio.
• In her speech to the House of Commons, she outlined her vision of Britain in the 21st century.
• President Bush delivered his 2004 State of the Union speech.
• She gave a speech on the economy.
• She made a stirring campaign speech on improving the lot of the unemployed.
• The President will deliver a major foreign-policy speech to the United Nations.
• The candidates gave their standard stump speeches (= political campaign speeches) .
• The prizewinner gave an emotional acceptance speech.
• a Senate floor speech
• her maiden speech (= her first) in the House of Commons
• the Chancellor's Budget speech
• the Prime Minister's speech-writers
• She's been asked to give the after-dinner speech.
• You will need to prepare an acceptance speech.
• a political speech writer
• in a/​the speech
• speech about

Join our community to access the latest language learning and assessment tips from Oxford University Press!

• in speech This expression is used mainly in speech, not in writing.
• a defence of free speech (= the right to say openly what you think)
• speech sounds
• the use of language in everyday speech
• The kids pepper their speech with a lot of slang and terms from social media.
• the difficulties of transcribing conversational speech
• Computer-generated speech has become significantly more intelligible and naturalistic.
• The poems are delivered in a style between speech and song.
• Improvements in speech recognition have produced digital assistants that can respond to spoken commands.
• A blind user can 'read' a newspaper using a Braille display or speech synthesizer.
• Her singing style is close to the natural rhythms of everyday speech.
• the speech rhythms of the Polish language
• He learned to successfully mimic American speech patterns.
• birds that mimic the intonations of human speech
• They were able to communicate without speech.
• In English, a letter does not always represent the same speech sound.
• Speech codes have been instituted by some universities (= to stop language that is sexist, racist, etc.) .
• The country continues to suppress free speech and censor the internet.
• When the government restricts speech, this may be a violation of the First Amendment.
• racist hate speech
• a figure of speech
• freedom of speech
• the power of speech
• I seemed to have lost the power of speech.
• a speech impediment
• The child was referred to a speech therapist .
• He temporarily lost the power of speech after the accident.
• It's a story about a kid who loses his powers of sight, hearing and speech.
• a child who has problems with speech and language
• a speech and language therapist
• After the stroke he had some difficulties with speech.
• the development of speech in humans
• Symptoms may include visual and speech impairment.
• Her speech was slurred—she was clearly drunk.
• Clear speech with crisp consonant sounds is very important.
• She could tell by his slurred speech that he had been drinking.
• She was slurring her speech.
• I find his speech very hard to understand.
• I don't like it when people correct my speech.
• His speech was incoherent, responding to questions that had not been asked.
• In halting speech, she began to tell her story.
• She has a very idiosyncratic style of speech.
• She has the longest speech in the play.
• dramatic irony

Other results

Nearby words.

Speech in Linguistics

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

In linguistics , speech is a system of  communication  that uses spoken words  (or sound symbols ). 

The study of speech sounds (or spoken language ) is the branch of linguistics known as phonetics . The study of sound changes in a language is phonology . For a discussion of speeches in rhetoric and oratory , see Speech (Rhetoric) .

Etymology:  From the Old English, "to speak"

Studying Language Without Making Judgements

• "Many people believe that written language is more prestigious than spoken language--its form is likely to be closer to Standard English , it dominates education and is used as the language of public administration. In linguistic terms, however, neither speech nor writing can be seen as superior. Linguists are more interested in observing and describing all forms of language in use than in making social and cultural judgements with no linguistic basis." (Sara Thorne, Mastering Advanced English Language , 2nd ed. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)

Speech Sounds and Duality

• "The very simplest element of speech --and by 'speech' we shall henceforth mean the auditory system of speech symbolism, the flow of spoken words--is the individual sound, though, . . . the sound is not itself a simple structure but the resultant of a series of independent, yet closely correlated, adjustments in the organs of speech." ( Edward Sapir , Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech , 1921)
• "Human language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously. This property is called duality (or 'double articulation'). In speech production, we have a physical level at which we can produce individual sounds, like n , b and i . As individual sounds, none of these discrete forms has any intrinsic meaning . In a particular combination such as bin , we have another level producing a meaning that is different from the meaning of the combination in nib . So, at one level, we have distinct sounds, and, at another level, we have distinct meanings. This duality of levels is, in fact, one of the most economical features of human language because, with a limited set of discrete sounds, we are capable of producing a very large number of sound combinations (e.g. words) which are distinct in meaning." (George Yule, The Study of Language , 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Approaches to Speech

• "Once we decide to begin an analysis of speech , we can approach it on various levels. At one level, speech is a matter of anatomy and physiology: we can study organs such as tongue and larynx in the production of speech. Taking another perspective, we can focus on the speech sounds produced by these organs--the units that we commonly try to identify by letters , such as a 'b-sound' or an 'm-sound.' But speech is also transmitted as sound waves, which means that we can also investigate the properties of the sound waves themselves. Taking yet another approach, the term 'sounds' is a reminder that speech is intended to be heard or perceived and that it is therefore possible to focus on the way in which a listener analyzes or processes a sound wave." (J. E. Clark and C. Yallop, An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology . Wiley-Blackwell, 1995)

Parallel Transmission

• "Because so much of our lives in a literate society has been spent dealing with speech recorded as letters and text in which spaces do separate letters and words, it can be extremely difficult to understand that spoken language simply does not have this characteristic. . . . [A]lthough we write, perceive, and (to a degree) cognitively process speech linearly--one sound followed by another--the actual sensory signal our ear encounters is not composed of discretely separated bits. This is an amazing aspect of our linguistic abilities, but on further thought one can see that it is a very useful one. The fact that speech can encode and transmit information about multiple linguistic events in parallel means that the speech signal is a very efficient and optimized way of encoding and sending information between individuals. This property of speech has been called parallel transmission ." (Dani Byrd and Toben H. Mintz, Discovering Speech, Words, and Mind . Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)

Oliver Goldsmith on the True Nature of Speech

• "It is usually said by grammarians , that the use of language is to express our wants and desires; but men who know the world hold, and I think with some show of reason, that he who best knows how to keep his necessities private is the most likely person to have them redressed; and that the true use of speech is not so much to express our wants, as to conceal them." (Oliver Goldsmith, "On the Use of Language." The Bee , October 20, 1759)

Pronunciation: SPEECH

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Freedom of speech: historical background.

• U.S. Constitution Annotated

First Amendment :

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Madison’s version of the speech and press clauses, introduced in the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789, provided: “The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.” 1 Footnote 1 Annals of Cong. 434 (1789) . Madison had also proposed language limiting the power of the states in a number of respects, including a guarantee of freedom of the press. Id. at 435 . Although passed by the House, the amendment was defeated by the Senate. See “Amendments to the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the States,” supra . The special committee rewrote the language to some extent, adding other provisions from Madison’s draft, to make it read: “The freedom of speech and of the press, and the right of the people peaceably to assemble and consult for their common good, and to apply to the government for redress of grievances, shall not be infringed.” 2 Footnote Id. at 731 (August 15, 1789). In this form it went to the Senate, which rewrote it to read: “That Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and consult for their common good, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” 3 Footnote The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History 1148–49 (B. Schwartz ed. 1971) . Subsequently, the religion clauses and these clauses were combined by the Senate. 4 Footnote Id. at 1153 . The final language was agreed upon in conference.

Debate in the House is unenlightening with regard to the meaning the Members ascribed to the speech and press clause, and there is no record of debate in the Senate. 5 Footnote The House debate insofar as it touched upon this amendment was concerned almost exclusively with a motion to strike the right to assemble and an amendment to add a right of the people to instruct their Representatives. 1 Annals of Cong. 731–49 (Aug. 15, 1789) . There are no records of debates in the states on ratification. In the course of debate, Madison warned against the dangers that would arise “from discussing and proposing abstract propositions, of which the judgment may not be convinced. I venture to say, that if we confine ourselves to an enumeration of simple, acknowledged principles, the ratification will meet with but little difficulty.” 6 Footnote Id. at 738 . That the “simple, acknowledged principles” embodied in the First Amendment have occasioned controversy without end both in the courts and out should alert one to the difficulties latent in such spare language.

Insofar as there is likely to have been a consensus, it was no doubt the common law view as expressed by Blackstone. “The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state; but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public; to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press: but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own temerity. To subject the press to the restrictive power of a licenser, as was formerly done, both before and since the Revolution, is to subject all freedom of sentiment to the prejudices of one man, and make him the arbitrary and infallible judge of all controverted points in learning, religion and government. But to punish as the law does at present any dangerous or offensive writings, which, when published, shall on a fair and impartial trial be adjudged of a pernicious tendency, is necessary for the preservation of peace and good order, of government and religion, the only solid foundations of civil liberty. Thus, the will of individuals is still left free: the abuse only of that free will is the object of legal punishment. Neither is any restraint hereby laid upon freedom of thought or inquiry; liberty of private sentiment is still left; the disseminating, or making public, of bad sentiments, destructive to the ends of society, is the crime which society corrects.” 7 Footnote 4 W. Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England 151–52 (T. Cooley, 2d rev. ed. 1872) . See 3 J. Story , Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 1874–86 (1833) . The most comprehensive effort to assess theory and practice in the period prior to and immediately following adoption of the Amendment is L. Levy , Legacy of Suppression: Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History (1960) , which generally concluded that the Blackstonian view was the prevailing one at the time and probably the understanding of those who drafted, voted for, and ratified the Amendment.

Whatever the general unanimity on this proposition at the time of the proposal of and ratification of the First Amendment , 8 Footnote It would appear that Madison advanced libertarian views earlier than his Jeffersonian compatriots, as witness his leadership of a move to refuse officially to concur in Washington’s condemnation of “[c]ertain self-created societies,” by which the President meant political clubs supporting the French Revolution, and his success in deflecting the Federalist intention to censure such societies. I. Brant , James Madison: Father of the Constitution 1787–1800 at 416–20 (1950) . “If we advert to the nature of republican government,” Madison told the House, “we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.” 4 Annals of Cong. 934 (1794) . On the other hand, the early Madison, while a member of his county’s committee on public safety, had enthusiastically promoted prosecution of Loyalist speakers and the burning of their pamphlets during the Revolutionary period. 1 Papers of James Madison 147, 161–62, 190–92 (W. Hutchinson & W. Rachal, eds., 1962) . There seems little doubt that Jefferson held to the Blackstonian view. Writing to Madison in 1788, he said: “A declaration that the Federal Government will never restrain the presses from printing anything they please, will not take away the liability of the printers for false facts printed.” 13 Papers of Thomas Jefferson 442 (J. Boyd ed., 1955) . Commenting a year later to Madison on his proposed amendment, Jefferson suggested that the free speech-free press clause might read something like: “The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write or otherwise to publish anything but false facts affecting injuriously the life, liberty, property, or reputation of others or affecting the peace of the confederacy with foreign nations.” 15 Papers , supra , at 367. it appears that there emerged in the course of the Jeffersonian counterattack on the Sedition Act 9 Footnote The Act, 1 Stat. 596 (1798), punished anyone who would “write, print, utter or publish . . . any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute.” See J. Smith , Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (1956) . and the use by the Adams Administration of the Act to prosecute its political opponents, 10 Footnote Id. at 159 et seq. something of a libertarian theory of freedom of speech and press, 11 Footnote L. Levy , Legacy of Suppression: Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History ch. 6 (1960) ; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 273–76 (1964) . But compare L. Levy , Emergence of a Free Press (1985) , a revised and enlarged edition of Legacy of Expression , in which Professor Levy modifies his earlier views, arguing that while the intention of the Framers to outlaw the crime of seditious libel, in pursuit of a free speech principle, cannot be established and may not have been the goal, there was a tradition of robust and rowdy expression during the period of the framing that contradicts his prior view that a modern theory of free expression did not begin to emerge until the debate over the Alien and Sedition Acts. which, however much the Jeffersonians may have departed from it upon assuming power, 12 Footnote L. Levy , Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side (1963) . Thus President Jefferson wrote to Governor McKean of Pennsylvania in 1803: “The federalists having failed in destroying freedom of the press by their gag-law, seem to have attacked it in an opposite direction; that is, by pushing its licentiousness and its lying to such a degree of prostitution as to deprive it of all credit. . . . This is a dangerous state of things, and the press ought to be restored to its credibility if possible. The restraints provided by the laws of the States are sufficient for this if applied. And I have, therefore, long thought that a few prosecutions of the most prominent offenders would have a wholesome effect in restoring the integrity of the presses. Not a general prosecution, for that would look like persecution; but a selected one.” 9 Works of Thomas Jefferson 449 (P. Ford ed., 1905) . was to blossom into the theory undergirding Supreme Court First Amendment jurisprudence in modern times. Full acceptance of the theory that the Amendment operates not only to bar most prior restraints of expression but subsequent punishment of all but a narrow range of expression, in political discourse and indeed in all fields of expression, dates from a quite recent period, although the Court’s movement toward that position began in its consideration of limitations on speech and press in the period following World War I. 13 Footnote New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) , provides the principal doctrinal justification for the development, although the results had long since been fully applied by the Court. In Sullivan , Justice Brennan discerned in the controversies over the Sedition Act a crystallization of “a national awareness of the central meaning of the First Amendment ,” id. at 273 , which is that the “right of free public discussion of the stewardship of public officials . . . [is] a fundamental principle of the American form of government.” Id. at 275 . This “central meaning” proscribes either civil or criminal punishment for any but the most maliciously, knowingly false criticism of government. “Although the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history. . . . [The historical record] reflect[s] a broad consensus that the Act, because of the restraint it imposed upon criticism of government and public officials, was inconsistent with the First Amendment .” Id. at 276 . Madison’s Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and his Report in support of them brought together and expressed the theories being developed by the Jeffersonians and represent a solid doctrinal foundation for the point of view that the First Amendment superseded the common law on speech and press, that a free, popular government cannot be libeled, and that the First Amendment absolutely protects speech and press. 6 Writings of James Madison , 341–406 (G. Hunt ed., 1908) . Thus, in 1907, Justice Holmes could observe that, even if the Fourteenth Amendment embodied prohibitions similar to the First Amendment , “still we should be far from the conclusion that the plaintiff in error would have us reach. In the first place, the main purpose of such constitutional provisions is 'to prevent all such previous restraints upon publications as had been practiced by other governments,' and they do not prevent the subsequent punishment of such as may be deemed contrary to the public welfare. The preliminary freedom extends as well to the false as to the true; the subsequent punishment may extend as well to the true as to the false. This was the law of criminal libel apart from statute in most cases, if not in all.” 14 Footnote Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454, 462 (1907) (emphasis in original, citation omitted). Justice Frankfurter had similar views in 1951: “The historic antecedents of the First Amendment preclude the notion that its purpose was to give unqualified immunity to every expression that touched on matters within the range of political interest. . . . ‘The law is perfectly well settled,’ this Court said over fifty years ago, ‘that the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, were not intended to lay down any novel principles of government, but simply to embody certain guaranties and immunities which we had inherited from our English ancestors, and which had from time immemorial been subject to certain well-recognized exceptions arising from the necessities of the case. In incorporating these principles into the fundamental law there was no intention of disregarding the exceptions, which continued to be recognized as if they had been formally expressed.’ Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 281 (1897) . That this represents the authentic view of the Bill of Rights and the spirit in which it must be construed has been recognized again and again in cases that have come here within the last fifty years.” Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 521–522, 524 (1951) (concurring opinion). But as Justice Holmes also observed, “[t]here is no constitutional right to have all general propositions of law once adopted remain unchanged.” 15 Footnote Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454, 461 (1907) .

But, in Schenck v. United States , 16 Footnote 249 U.S. 47, 51–52 (1919) (citations omitted). the first of the post-World War I cases to reach the Court, Justice Holmes, in his opinion for the Court upholding convictions for violating the Espionage Act by attempting to cause insubordination in the military service by circulation of leaflets, suggested First Amendment restraints on subsequent punishment as well as on prior restraint. “It well may be that the prohibition of laws abridging the freedom of speech is not confined to previous restraints, although to prevent them may have been the main purpose . . . . We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. . . . The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. . . . The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

Justice Holmes, along with Justice Brandeis, soon went into dissent in their views that the majority of the Court was misapplying the legal standards thus expressed to uphold suppression of speech that offered no threat to organized institutions. 17 Footnote Debs v. United States, 249 U.S. 211 (1919) ; Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919) ; Schaefer v. United States, 251 U.S. 466 (1920) ; Pierce v. United States, 252 U.S. 239 (1920) ; United States ex rel. Milwaukee Social Democratic Pub. Co. v. Burleson, 255 U.S. 407 (1921) . A state statute similar to the federal one was upheld in Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254 U.S. 325 (1920) . But it was with the Court’s assumption that the Fourteenth Amendment restrained the power of the states to suppress speech and press that the doctrines developed. 18 Footnote Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925) ; Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927) . The Brandeis and Holmes dissents in both cases were important formulations of speech and press principles. At first, Holmes and Brandeis remained in dissent, but, in Fiske v. Kansas , 19 Footnote 274 U.S. 380 (1927) . the Court sustained a First Amendment type of claim in a state case, and in Stromberg v. California , 20 Footnote 283 U.S. 359 (1931) . By contrast, it was not until 1965 that a federal statute was held unconstitutional under the First Amendment . Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301 (1965) . See also United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258 (1967) . voided a state statute on grounds of its interference with free speech. 21 Footnote See also Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697 (1931) ; Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U.S. 242 (1937) ; DeJonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353 (1937) ; Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444 (1938) . State common law was also voided, with the Court in an opinion by Justice Black asserting that the First Amendment enlarged protections for speech, press, and religion beyond those enjoyed under English common law. 22 Footnote Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 263–68 (1941) (overturning contempt convictions of newspaper editor and others for publishing commentary on pending cases).

Development over the years since has been uneven, but by 1964 the Court could say with unanimity: “we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” 23 Footnote New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964) . And, in 1969, the Court said that the cases “have fashioned the principle that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” 24 Footnote Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969) . This development and its myriad applications are elaborated in the following sections.

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Synonyms of speech

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• presentation
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Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, therefore,

The General Assembly

Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair, and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.

2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.

2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

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Introduction

Racism is the belief that people who belong to certain races are naturally inferior to others. Racism also includes discrimination , or unfair treatment against people and hatred of them because of their race. People who are racist often believe that their own race is naturally smarter, stronger, or otherwise better than other races. They associate skin color, hair texture, or other aspects of appearance with what they believe are inferior inherited traits. They believe such physical characteristics are linked to lower intellectual abilities or negative behavioral and personality traits. Racism includes racial prejudice—having a negative or hostile view of people simply because they are of a particular race. It is characterized by unjustifiable, stereotyped beliefs.

The term racism is also applied to political, economic, or legal institutions and systems that maintain discrimination on the basis of race. Institutions and systems can create and reinforce unfair racial inequalities. These inequalities exist in wealth and income, education, health care, civil rights, and other areas ( see “Systemic Racism” below).

This article covers prejudice and mistreatment because of race, by individuals and through institutions and systems. Other groups face related kinds of mistrust and mistreatment because of their identity. For information on other types of discrimination, see discrimination , ethnic group , feminism , gay rights movement ; Hispanic Americans . Jews have been discriminated against as both a religious group and a racial group; see anti-Semitism .

To learn about the history of classifying people into racial groups, see the article race . Since the late 20th century scientists have held that there is no scientific basis for dividing people into races. The concept of race is a cultural invention. In practice, however, people commonly classify other people on the basis of “race” and treat them badly because of it.

Effects of Racism

The mistreatment resulting from racism can range from subtle insults to restrictions on people’s civil rights to violence. Racism puts minorities at a disadvantage. It helps to concentrate social and economic power in the dominant racial group. Racist beliefs and acts cause great harm. The examples given here are just some of the many ways racism has affected people.

Because of racism, people in minority groups often find it difficult to secure jobs that pay a living wage or to access needed medical care. They may not find decent housing in safe neighborhoods with good schools. Laws may make it impossible or difficult for people of a certain race to vote . Even if a group’s rights are protected by law, it may still be difficult for them to exercise those rights. For instance, it can be hard for African Americans to vote in certain parts of the United States if few or no polling places are open in their neighborhoods. Racist policies and practices can limit the economic, educational, and career success of a minority group overall. Such practices can result in far higher percentages of minorities going to prison. Indigenous people in Australia, for example, and Black people in the United Kingdom and the United States are imprisoned at significantly higher rates than white people in those countries.

Racist views spread widely through societies, their institutions, and their attitudes, and this can have profound effects. Long-standing racist views in white-dominated societies can lead white people to be biased against people of color. A racial bias is a negative view of people simply because of their race. The person holding that bias might not even be aware of it. Many white people, for example, view Black people they do not know with suspicion and fear. White people may have an underlying racist belief that Black people are more likely to commit crimes than other people. This bias has become part of society’s institutions. It has led in some countries to overpolicing of neighborhoods where Blacks and other people of color live. It has also led to police brutality, or mistreatment of civilians by the police. In the United States, African Americans and other minorities have been the major targets of this mistreatment. Police brutality has ranged from verbal abuse to false arrest, beatings, torture, and murder ( see police brutality in the United States ).

Society can make it clear in many ways that the majority group commonly considers racial minorities to be inferior—not as smart, not as successful, not as moral, not as important. Racism affects people’s sense of self-worth. People in minority groups can be bombarded with a constant, lifelong stream of signals that society does not value people who look like them. In white-dominated societies, people of racial minorities may not be represented in movies, television shows, and books the way white people are. There may be few or no nonwhite characters. Those that do appear may have negative stereotyped roles, such as criminals, drug dealers, and terrorists. In schools, history instruction may focus mainly on the history of white people, largely excluding information on people from other groups. In many U.S. cities, statues and monuments have honored people who mistreated African Americans, Native Americans , and other minorities in the past. U.S. sports teams have used images of Native Americans as mascots . Some U.S. schools have banned hairstyles that are commonly worn by African Americans.

Systemic Racism

Racist acts can be carried out by individuals. For example, a landlord might not want to rent an apartment to a family because of their race, because the landlord assumes they will not make good tenants. Racism can also be encoded in laws and the official policies of institutions. Long after such laws and policies are officially repealed, the negative effects can persist. In the United States, for example, until the mid-20th century, nonwhite people could be legally prohibited from buying homes in “white” neighborhoods. That practice became illegal. However, other practices, along with individual racism, served to keep people of color segregated in separate neighborhoods.

In the 1930s U.S. federal programs sought to expand suburban home ownership by providing more-affordable mortgages, or home loans. However, nonwhites were typically prevented from obtaining these loans, whether officially or unofficially, even if they had good credit. This practice is called redlining, because loan companies would draw red lines on maps around minority neighborhoods. They decided those neighborhoods were too risky for home loans. Redlining has also been carried out by private banks and by real-estate agents and individuals. They might steer minorities away from buying homes, renting or purchasing land, or opening businesses in predominantly white areas.

Federally supported redlining in the United States lasted until the mid-1960s. It left minority urban neighborhoods severely overcrowded. With bank loans unavailable to the people and businesses in the redlined areas, the minority neighborhoods declined. Meanwhile, areas that were mostly white received investment funds to maintain and develop their neighborhoods. Their schools were much better funded.

Though redlining is now illegal, racially restrictive practices have continued, and the effects of past redlining remain. Patterns of residential segregation are still the norm in many parts of the country. In addition, redlining has contributed to unfair wealth and housing gaps between African Americans and whites that persist today. Owning a home was a major way for middle-class white families to build wealth over time, and home ownership was denied to many nonwhites. In addition property values increased much faster in mainly white suburbs, which were deemed more stable and desirable. Today, more than 80 years later, most of the neighborhoods that were redlined in the 1930s remain impoverished, home mainly to minorities with low incomes.

Redlining is one example from the United States of what is called systemic racism. In systemic racism, racist ideas and assumptions are entrenched in a society’s institutions and systems. For example, these can include the government, the educational system, and the criminal justice system. Policies and practices privilege one group (white people) and put others at a disadvantage in numerous spheres of life, such as employment, housing, and health care. The society’s institutions and deeply rooted practices thus uphold and maintain white supremacy, or the system that keeps white people at the top in wealth, power, education, and status. Systemic racism is also called institutional racism.

Systemic racism upholds white privilege, which includes white people being systematically given greater opportunities than other people overall. On the whole, they can move through society with much greater ease. In everyday life, “white” tends to be the assumed default for “person.” The underlying and unexamined idea in the dominant society is that white people are the “normal” or “regular” people. People of racial minorities may be seen by society as exceptions, if they are seen at all. For example, most products and advertisements may be geared to white people, except for special products marketed separately to a particular racial group. Some products such as bandages and crayons have been labeled “flesh toned” but were based on typical complexions of white people. As mentioned above, media may include mainly white characters, and the “history” taught in schools may be mainly “white history.”

White privilege means that “whiteness” is privileged—not that individual white people do not face hardships in life or that they did not work hard for what they have. The struggles and bad breaks white people may face, however, are not because of their race. The same is not true for racial minorities. White privilege means that Black people and other people of color are not afforded the same chances in life and benefits of the doubt as white people in general. People of racial minorities have to contend with a host of unfair, life-long disadvantages because of racist systems and policies.

Historical Background

Origins and spread of racism.

Racism has a long history that continues to the present time. White racism arose after Europeans began to explore the globe in the 15th century. As European explorers encountered different peoples, they developed the idea of race to explain differences between different populations. As European countries began to take over the lands and resources of other peoples, racist ideas developed. These ideas helped the Europeans justify their conquests. Racism spread around the world. In various societies, people from the group in power began to believe that only members of their own race should have certain benefits and rights. These included access to political power, economic resources, high-status jobs, and unrestricted civil rights.

Racism was at the heart of slavery in North America. From the 16th to the 19th century, slave traders seized and transported millions of Black Africans to the Americas. There the Africans were sold as slaves. People of European origin developed the idea of race to magnify the differences between them and the people of African descent they enslaved. They used this idea to dehumanize—or to portray as not fully human—Africans and their African American descendants. White Americans and Europeans who supported and profited from slavery claimed that Black people were inferior and so did not deserve the same human rights as other people. They thus used racist ideas to justify and maintain the system of slavery. Racism helped white Americans deal with the contradiction between the horrors of slavery and ideas of the United States as a champion of human equality, freedom, and dignity.

Western Europeans used racism to justify their empire -building activities, especially in the 18th century. In search of profit and power, several European countries set up colonies in large areas of the world. They explored, conquered, and settled, or colonized, vast territories. They spread what they believed was superior European culture. By the 19th century racism had developed further and spread around the globe. Believing that nonwhite people were lesser human beings, European colonizers destroyed populations in some areas they conquered. These peoples included American Indians in the Americas, Indigenous peoples in Australia , and the Māori in New Zealand . Racist ideas were also behind the colonial policies and practices of the British in India and Southeast Asia and, later, in Africa .

In many countries leaders began to think of the ethnic groups of their own societies, usually religious or language groups, in racial terms. They started to think of their population as being divided between “higher” and “lower” races. Those seen as the low-status races, especially in colonized areas, were used and abused for their labor. Discrimination against them became a common pattern in many areas of the world. The effects of colonization and the racist ideas used to justify it persisted even after many of the colonies gained their independence in the 20th century.

Likewise, racial discrimination was still a problem after the ending of slavery in the late 19th century. In North America and later in South Africa during the apartheid period, for example, people of different races (chiefly Blacks and whites) were segregated , or kept separate, from one another. They had separate communities and institutions such as churches, schools, and hospitals. In the United States, white leaders in the South passed various state laws to help ensure white supremacy and privilege. These laws included the Black codes and later the Jim Crow laws . The Black codes were passed to limit the economic opportunities of the newly freed slaves and to secure a steady supply of cheap labor. The Jim Crow laws enforced segregation in the South.

As immigration brought more peoples together in more-diverse societies, racism continued to spread and flourish. Established groups discriminated against newcomers. In the United States, for example, large numbers of Chinese workers came to help build railways in the West in the late 19th century. White people thought that Chinese people were an “inferior race.” White workers feared that the Chinese immigrants would take jobs that would otherwise have gone to white people. The opposition to the Chinese laborers was so strong and hostile that the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to keep Chinese people from immigrating to the United States.

Anti-Asian sentiment continued to grow among white Americans. In the early 20th century, U.S. laws banned immigration from almost all of Asia. In the mid-20th century, Asians were once again allowed to immigrate to the United States. Meanwhile, however, the United States and Japan fought against each other in World War II . The U.S. War Department viewed all Japanese Americans as potential traitors, though there was no evidence to support this. In 1942 the U.S. government forcibly relocated more than 100,000 Japanese Americans, including U.S. citizens, from the West Coast to prison camps, where they were held until the end of the war. ( See also Asian Americans ; Japanese American internment ).

Fighting Racism

Racism draws out hatred and distrust, and most societies have concluded that it is wrong, at least in principle. Many societies have begun to combat racism by denouncing racist beliefs and practices. They have also promoted human understanding in public policies, as does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , set forth by the United Nations in 1948.

In the United States, African Americans and others increasingly fought against racism during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. Laws and social policies that enforced racial segregation and that allowed racial discrimination against African Americans were gradually eliminated. The Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964) to the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act (1965) made invalid any laws aimed at limiting the voting power of racial minorities. However, a key provision of the Voting Rights Act was later effectively removed. Attempts to keep African Americans and other groups from voting continued. ( See also poll tax ; voter ID law .)

In South Africa activists fought against the racist apartheid policies starting in the 1940s and ’50s. The activists came from a Black liberation organization called the African National Congress (ANC) and from other groups. From the 1960s international antiapartheid efforts included boycotts and economic sanctions against South Africa. The country’s Parliament ultimately repealed the apartheid laws in 1990–91. ANC leader Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela , who had been a political prisoner for 27 years, became the country’s first Black president in 1994. The following year the South African government established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help heal the country. Its aim was to bring about a reconciliation of its people, or a return to more harmonious relations. To do this, it sought to uncover the truth about human rights violations that had occurred during the period of apartheid.

In Australia , Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples finally won the right to vote in national elections in 1962. Their citizenship was affirmed in a referendum, or popular vote, in 1967. In the late 20th century the country made progress in its reconciliation movement. The movement included acknowledging the past mistreatment of Indigenous Australians and resolving to right those wrongs. National Reconciliation Week and the National Day of Healing (Sorry Day) are annual events to bring reconciliation efforts to a national focus. The latter is a day for remembering the Stolen Generations —Indigenous Australian children who were forcibly removed from their families under official government policy in the 20th century. While progress has been made, Indigenous Australians have continued to experience racial discrimination in employment, housing, education, and other areas of everyday life.

As activists in many countries continued to fight against racism, scholars in the late 20th century began highlighting the ways that systemic racism causes racial discrimination to continue. They emphasized that race itself, instead of being biologically based and natural, is a socially invented concept. They pointed out ways that white people have used this concept to further their economic and political interests at the expense of people of color.

Efforts to fight racism and to do away with racist systems continued into the 21st century. At times, particular events or protests became flash points that brought these efforts to wider popular attention. For example, in the United Kingdom , the government’s treatment of a group of Caribbean immigrants and their descendants, nearly all of whom were Black, became a scandal in 2017–18. The immigrants had arrived in Britain from the late 1940s to the early ’70s. They were known as the Windrush generation, after the name of the ship that brought many of them to the United Kingdom. A 1971 law allowed immigrants from Commonwealth countries who were already in the United Kingdom to remain. However, the government failed to provide official paperwork documenting the status of the immigrants. Decades later, many of the Windrush generation were treated as illegal immigrants because they lacked this documentation. As such, many were denied health care and lost their jobs and housing; many were detained or deported. A government-ordered inquiry issued a report in 2020 identifying institutional racism as a cause of the Windrush injustices.

In the Unites States, instances of police brutality and failures to hold officers accountable at times sparked large protests. This happened, for example, after the killings in 2014 of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, both unarmed Black men. Garner died in Staten Island, New York, after a white police officer held him in a prolonged illegal choke hold, with Garner telling the officer he could not breathe. Later that year a white police officer shot and killed Brown, a teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri. In the wake of these deaths and others, a group of Black activists started the Black Lives Matter social movement. It aimed to combat police brutality and racism. The Black Lives Matter movement played a significant role in nationwide protests against later acts of police brutality against African Americans, including the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in 2020. A white police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck for several minutes, not stopping after Floyd said he could not breathe. Floyd’s killing set off civil unrest and massive protests that greatly influenced public opinion, compelling national and international discussions of racism in society.

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The Reason Why Some Political Addresses Are Called “Stump Speeches”

By ellen gutoskey | aug 6, 2024.

Every election season, U.S. presidential candidates hit the campaign trail to deliver what’s known as a stump speech. So what exactly is it, and why do we call it that?

The Origin of Stump Speeches

The state of the stump speech.

Back in Revolutionary War–era America, orators in rural communities sometimes stood on actual tree stumps to elevate themselves above listeners. By the early 19th century, the terms stump orator and stump oratory had started appearing in newspapers, and stump speech was in print by 1820 . In June of that year, for example, the Knoxville Register mentioned the stump speech of a West Tennessee man running for a seat in the state legislature.

“It was proposed, we are informed, in a stump speech delivered by the candidate, with loud exclamations of applause to a number of the electors of the county,” the paper wrote (emphasis theirs), “That if they would elect him he would use his talents and influence to have a law passed laying a tax on the state which should be applied exclusively to paying the debts of all those who are involved .”

The passage illustrates what a typical stump speech involved (and still involves): a political candidate telling local people why they should vote for said candidate. Eventually—though it’s hard to say exactly when—stump speeches stopped featuring literal stumps.

“[W]e often mount the stump only figuratively: and very good stump-speeches are delivered from a table, a chair, a whiskey barrel, and the like. Sometimes we make our best stump-speeches on horse-back,” Baynard Rush Hall wrote in his account of pioneer life in Indiana for the 1855 edition of The New Purchase . During the climax of one memorable stump speech given from an ox cart, pranksters removed the pins keeping the cart level, causing the speaker to tumble into the dirt.

Hall’s book may also shed light on why stump speeches are associated with the United States . Throughout the 19th century (and beyond), as the nation expanded its borders and communities coalesced into new towns and cities, there were more opportunities to run for office. He described the “social state” as “always in ferment; for ever was some election, doing, being done, done or going to be done; and each was as bitterly contested as that of president or governor. … And everybody expected at some time to be candidate for something; or that his uncle would be; or his cousin, or his cousin’s wife’s cousin’s friend would be: so that everybody, and everybody’s relations, and everybody’s relations’ friends, were for ever electioneering.”

Not everyone viewed the importance of public speaking in elections as positive (or at least neutral). In an 1850 pamphlet , Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle eviscerated the stump orator as a “mouthpiece of Chaos to poor benighted mortals that lend ear to him as to a voice from Cosmos.” Carlyle disputed the correlation between being able to talk about accomplishing things and being able to actually achieve them—and he felt voters were too dazzled by the former to see the difference. Moreover, Carlyle believed that the focus on public speaking prevented the best leaders—in his estimation, doers, not talkers—from even running for office, leaving voters to stack the government with charismatic windbags.

“Your poor tenpound franchisers and electoral world generally, in love with eloquent talk, are they the likeliest to discern what man it is that has worlds of silent work in him? No,” Carlyle wrote. “Or is such a man, even if born in the due rank for it, the likeliest to present himself, and court their most sweet voices? Again, no.”

But the reality, then and now, is that candidates have to convince people to vote for them, which is hard to do without talking.

The modern conception of a stump speech isn’t just any speech given to a group of voters. It’s one speech that a candidate travels around repeating to various groups of voters. Naturally, we hear about them most frequently during presidential campaigns, which involve lots of travel and the largest constituency (and which usually get the most attention). While today’s presidential candidates don’t orate atop whiskey barrels or ox carts, that homespun spirit is preserved in some of the locations they choose as campaign stops : churches, union halls, and even barns.

The media often references a stump speech in conjunction with its recurring themes. In November 2020, for example, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentioned that Joe Biden “gave some of his standard economy-focused stump speech.” Earlier that year, The Buffalo News said that Amy Klobuchar’s “entire stump speech [was] littered with appeals to the heartland.” During the 2016 campaign season, the same paper noted how John Kasich’s stump speech almost never failed to cover “his work to produce a budget surplus” during his time on the House Budget Committee. “He brings a national-debt clock to town halls,” the article said.

However, candidates modify and refine their stump speeches on the campaign trail—not unlike how stand-up comedians workshop bits while touring. In 2008, The Washington Post published an anatomy of Barack Obama’s 45-minute stump speech (transcribed from one appearance in Boise, Idaho), detailing what points were added when and even which parts garnered applause or laughter. 

“Many of the additions are riffs that he’s created in response to criticisms made against him, lines of attack that he absorbs and tries to turn against the opposition,” The Post wrote. After fellow candidate John Edwards accused him of being “too nice a guy” and “too conciliatory” to effect change, for example, Obama made it a selling point in his stump speech, claiming that his willingness to “reach out across the aisle” was a product of his strong principles and clear view of what he was fighting for.

Another tentpole of the stump speech is tailoring it to the audience with a little local color. When Hillary Clinton addressed a crowd at Tampa’s University of South Florida in September 2016, she started with, “I know I’m only the second most exciting thing that’s happened here in the last few days. Your big win to open your football season got some attention.” When Mitt Romney spoke in Bedford, New Hampshire, in December 2011, he thanked people for “coming out on a cold winter night” and mentioned that the state’s ski resorts would probably “start making snow … and get people from Massachusetts across the border to come up and ski.”

Generally, stump speakers are always searching for the perfect balance between specificity and universality. You want your audience to feel understood and confident that you’re committed to fixing their issues, but you also want to be broad enough not to alienate voters. So stump speeches can be heavy on the hedging. In 2016, when FiveThirtyEight tasked former Republican speechwriter Barton Swaim and former Democratic speechwriter Jeffrey Nussbaum with writing a completely bipartisan stump speech, they filled it with wording like “We need to start thinking seriously” and “The U.S. will not ignore.” As Swaim pointed out, “to ‘start thinking seriously’ about something isn’t actually to do anything,” and “not to ignore something isn’t necessarily to act.”

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Meaning of speech in English

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speech noun ( SAY WORDS )

• She suffers from a speech defect .
• From her slow , deliberate speech I guessed she must be drunk .
• Freedom of speech and freedom of thought were both denied under the dictatorship .
• As a child , she had some speech problems .
• We use these aids to develop speech in small children .
• banteringly
• bull session
• chew the fat idiom
• conversation
• shoot the breeze idiom
• touch base idiom
• tête-à-tête

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

speech noun ( FORMAL TALK )

• talk She will give a talk on keeping kids safe on the internet.
• lecture The lecture is entitled "War and the Modern American Presidency."
• presentation We were given a presentation of progress made to date.
• speech You might have to make a speech when you accept the award.
• address He took the oath of office then delivered his inaugural address.
• oration It was to become one of the most famous orations in American history.
• Her speech was received with cheers and a standing ovation .
• She closed the meeting with a short speech.
• The vicar's forgetting his lines in the middle of the speech provided some good comedy .
• Her speech caused outrage among the gay community .
• She concluded the speech by reminding us of our responsibility .
• call for papers
• deliver a speech
• maiden speech
• presentation
• public speaking
• talk at someone

speech | Intermediate English

Speech noun ( talking ), examples of speech, collocations with speech.

These are words often used in combination with speech .

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Translations of speech

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Word of the Day

a type of large, flat rubber shoe used for swimming, especially underwater

Robbing, looting, and embezzling: talking about stealing

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4 takeaways from Tim Walz’s first campaign speech as Kamala Harris’s running mate

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Hours after being named as Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz introduced himself to American voters Tuesday with a forceful speech at a Philadelphia rally in which he sought to portray the Democratic ticket as full of optimism and “joy.”

At a rally at Temple University, Walz was introduced by the woman who selected him as her prospective vice president. Harris, the current vice president touted his military service, his years spent as a teacher and a high school football coach, his vote in Congress to help pass the Affordable Care Act, his signing a law that codified abortion rights in Minnesota after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and his expansion of gun restrictions in that state.

Harris told the audience that Walz, who served in Congress from 2007 to 2019 before being elected governor in 2019, “will be ready on day one.” Comparing Walz and former President Donald Trump ’s running mate JD Vance was “like a matchup between the varsity team and the JV squad.”

Here are the key takeaways from Walz’s speech:

Reintroducing Harris

When she wasn’t speaking about Walz, Harris stuck to her standard stump speech, portraying herself as a former prosecutor and former attorney general who was familiar with what she said were criminal types like Trump. But Walz also used Tuesday’s speech before a large audience to try to introduce optimistic contours to that bio.

“Thank you, Madam Vice President, for the trust you put in me, but, maybe more so, thank you for bringing back the joy,” he said.

Harris, Walz added, “has fought on the side of the American people.”

“She took on the predators, she took on the fraudsters, she took down the transnational gangs,” he said. “She stood up against powerful corporate interests and she never hesitated to reach across the aisle if it meant improving peoples’ lives.”

Reflecting the renewed energy expressed by Democrats since Harris replaced President Biden as the party’s candidate, as well as the Republican attacks on the vice president’s laugh, Walz reiterated that she approached her job “with a sense of joy.”

A commitment to country and community

“I was born in West Point, Nebraska. I lived in Butte, a small town of 400, where community was a way of life. Growing up, I spent the summers working on the family farm. My mom and dad taught us, ‘show generosity to your fellow neighbors and work for a common good.’”

Walz recounted joining the Army National Guard at the age of 17. “For 24 years, I proudly wore the uniform of this nation,” he said.

“The National Guard gave me purpose,” he said. “It gave me the strength of a shared commitment, of something greater than ourselves.”

Walz also made clear that he viewed the remaining three months of the presidential campaign as a continuation of that service.

“So we got 91 days. My God, that’s easy,” he said. “We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”

‘Don’t ever underestimate teachers’

Both Harris and Walz leaned heavily on his background as a social studies teacher and a football coach at a public high school. Walz also noted how integrated that profession had been with his family.

“I can’t wait for all of you in America to get to know my incredible wife, Gwen, a 29-year public school educator,” Walz said. “Don’t ever underestimate teachers.”

“My dad was a teacher,” he added. “My brothers and sisters and I followed in his footsteps. Three out of four of us married teachers. [It’s] what we do.”

Having been a teacher for nearly 20 years, Walz said that it was his students who “encouraged me to run for office. They saw in me what I was hoping to instill in them a commitment in common good. A belief that one person can make a difference.”

“And because high school teachers are super optimistic, I was running in a district that had one Democrat since 1892,” he added.

‘Weird as hell’

During his own warm-up speech at the rally, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro all but acknowledged that Walz’s folksy attack on Trump and Vance as “weird” had influenced Harris’s decision to pick Walz as her running mate.

“Tim Walz, in his beautiful Midwestern, plain-spoken way, he summed up JD Vance the best,” Shapiro said. “He's a weirdo."

When it was his turn to speak, Walz backed up that assessment with a few zingers that bolstered the themes of his speech.

“Now, Donald Trump sees the world a little differently than us. First of all, he doesn’t know the first thing about service. He doesn’t have time for it because he’s too busy serving himself,” he said at one point.

“Make no mistake, violent crime was up under Donald Trump — that’s not even counting the crimes he committed,” he added.

On the topic of reproductive rights, Walz underlined his Midwestern values.

“In Minnesota we respect our neighbors and the personal choices that they make, even if we wouldn’t make the same choice for ourselves. There’s a golden rule: Mind your own damn business,” he said.

Turning to Vance, Walz brought the “weird” attack full circle.

“I can’t wait to debate the guy, that is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” Walz said in reference to a salacious (and debunked) rumor about Vance, resulting in the night’s biggest response from the crowd. “I gotta tell you, pointing out just an observation of mine that I made, I just have to say it. You know it, you feel it: These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell.”

Cover thumbnail photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images